


An Old Friend Comes to Visit

by LauraDoloresIssum



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Comfort, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraDoloresIssum/pseuds/LauraDoloresIssum
Summary: Although there are plenty of Nick Valentine romance fics, there seem to be none, romantic or otherwise, with his old frenemy Skinny Malone. User DwarvenBeardSpores commissioned this short, light little piece.





	An Old Friend Comes to Visit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DwarvenBeardSpores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/gifts).



Of all the stupid sons of bitches Skinny Malone had been expecting to see back in Goodneighbor, it hadn’t been old Nicky. He’d just come back from the chem warehouse where they were brewing up a new recipe of Jet, the high lasted longer and the downswing wasn’t so bad, and with a new batch being so risky, it never hurt to do a little… focus testing. Yeah, focus. That was the word. He focused on getting his keys in the front door. Everything was still moving a little slow, but damn it still felt real good. Everything stood out in bright colors, moving in slow motion through the world. He stared at the intermittent gleam on the side of the rusty key for a while before he remembered to turn the damn thing. It wasn’t Skinny Malone’s usual to personally test merchandise, but sometimes ya just gotta let loose, one way or another.

The old wooden door came free with a squeal, and he watched it glide open like a bird coming in to land. He reached up and pulled the fraying string, and all the neon came on in the little brick house. He squinted at the huddled shape under the pulsing red and blue light on the wall. Looking at still shapes was… hard, but he was almost positive the lump on the sofa wasn’t meant to be that big. Underneath the breezy, elated Jet confidence, a ripple of instinctual unease began to stir. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers, and his two most trusted boys stepped inside, keeping their dirty shoes planted on the mat like good cookies. Unlike him, they were stone cold sober at all times; staying alert was their job description. They raised their submachine guns and pointed them directly at the shape on the couch.

“Whoevva y’are, better sit up real slow and show me yer hands, or I’ll be using yer skin to patch the holes in my new sofa.”

“It’s much more comfortable than your old one, Skinny,” said the shape as it sat up in slow-motion, hands in the air. The Jet slowed the speech down enough that he couldn’t recognize the voice, but it sounded familiar. The rest was dark, but he saw the hairless alabaster dome of plastic skin in great detail before a gleaming skeletal hand placed a crumpled brown fedora on it.

“Valentine? That you?” With some concentration, he hung his coat and triby on the coatrack.

“It’s me. I’d like to say ‘large as life’, but, well, we both know there’d be some fine print to that. Mind if I smoke?”

Skinny waved, and Tommy and Sheng closed the front door behind them as they left. “Go ‘head.”

In the semidarkness, a glowing spark of red. The synth drew in, his face half-shadowed under the fedora as the red and blue slowly strobed above him. Skinny had looted it out of an old police station; that pretty much summed up his sense of humor.

“Didn’t expect to see you back in Goodneighbor unless the crows dropped a piece of you. What happened?”

Nick Valentine made a suppressed sound that might have been anger or frustration. “My own damn fault. Had a paying customer walk right into a super mutant den down near Boston Square. Some old hotel. They’re in a stewpot right about now. I just barely made it out.”

Skinny walked behind him to the kitchen and pulled some roast radstag out of the refrigerator. He didn’t bother looking at Valentine; they both knew they had guns trained on each other. “The bodyguard business not going so well, then?”

A sigh, and the tip of the cigarette flared among the neon as Nick turned his head and laid an arm across the back of the couch. “You’re telling me. All these people who want a hired gun, they’re so noisy. They clomp around and don’t keep their voices down, that’s why they run into trouble every five seconds. I swore I wasn’t gonna take another loudmouth’s caps, but what can I say? A man needs his replacement parts, and synth bits,” the dark figure on the couch chuckled, “well, they don’t come cheap.”

“So you got yourself all mauled up and come crawling to the old neighborhood? An odd choice.” The world was slowly speeding up again. Seemed the chems were finally wearing off.

“Closest place around that didn’t have raiders or mutants in it. If I’m gonna bite it, I’d at least like to die at the hands of somebody that didn’t fish their clothes out of a trash bin. And Hancock’s got too much of a soft spot for old Nick, so I figured I’d head for the second-best-dressed man in the Commonwealth.” Skinny’s pinstripes swelled with pride. “Well, third, after Magnolia.” The pinstripes subtly deflated. “Ordinarily, I’d consider myself third, but…” the cigarette waved in the dark, “I’m not quite myself right now.”

Skinny came over to his front with a lantern, and saw exactly what Nick meant. The synth’s clothes had been clawed and shot nearly to shreds, and so had a good amount of his skin. Pumps and clear pipes full of silvery-blue coolant hung clearly visible under his metal ribcage. One yellow electronic eye was entirely gone. He straightened his fedora self-consciously and sucked on the cigarette again. The smoke leaked out of a large tear near his collarbone.

“You look ready for the trash pile, Nicky.”

“And yet every time somebody says that, I just keep on pumping.” A servo popped audibly, and some stray sparks flew. “You gonna shoot me?”

“I’m considerin’ it. You gonna shoot me back?”

“I literally do not have the energy to move from this couch. So yes, I think I will.”

Skinny Malone paused, considered, and lowered the end of the sawed-off he’d gotten from out of a kitchen cabinet. Valentine dropped his automatic ten-millimeter into his lap.

“Well, then.”

“Well, then.”

There was some silence in the darkened room.

“I’ll be taking a walk, seeing if I care to ignore yer worthless hide. Don’t you steal nothin’ of mine, ya hear?”

“Only when you get something worth stealing, Skinny. And that fat head of yours doesn’t count.”

Skinny walked (Tommy silently fell into step behind him) the several blocks to the front of town, past Kill or Be Killed, in total silence. After a moment, he stopped into Daisy’s general store.

“Hey there Skinny darling, what can I do for you?”

“Ya got any more of those bounty slips, gorgeous?”

She rummaged under the desk and brought out a stack of papers and some pencils. “And do bring them all back. I’ve told KLEO to shoot the next person who walks off with one.”

“I’d never be so impolite to such a pretty doll.”

“That’s what I love about you, Skinny, you try so hard no matter how badly you fail.” Daisy winked one desiccated black eye.

He scribbled on a few, “Synth parts needed. Skin, innards, eyes, limbs. Good condition. 100 caps apiece, subject to variation. Talk to Skinny.” He posted them in a few obvious places near the front gate, the only bounties aside from one for a swan.

Nick was still on the couch when he got back, in almost the exact same position.

“Have a good walk? Breathe some healthy radiation? You should walk more, Skinny, be good to drop some excess ego.”

“What, yer not dead yet?” Skinny muttered as he kicked off his boots. “Figured you’d croak while I was out, save me the expense of a bullet.”

He went upstairs and came back down in his nightwear. Neither of them were particularly embarrassed. When you’re enemies with someone long enough, you see them in a surprising variety of situations.

He sat down on the couch next to the remains of Nick’s stomach. “You’re gonna have to move over, unless you wanna be dying on the floor. My last girl that left me, she took the bed.”

“Ah, that classic Skinny Malone luck with the ladies. You should sell autographed no-leaf clovers.”

“You been saying that for years, Valentine, but my luck is gonna change soon. Just you see.”

“If I do, it’ll have to be with one eye.”

“Shut yourself down, you bolt heap, before I shoot the one you got left.”

Valentine tapped out his cigarette and powered down. For a while Skinny tried to get comfortable, but it was hard lying next to a cold hard set of metal ribs and essentially a disembodied and very squishy set of organs.

Eventually, he just slept on the floor, and made a note to get himself a sleeping bag. The repairs were doubtless going to take a while.


End file.
